Now Hero Anon
by VaRuka
Summary: Oops. The Scooby Gang is gone! Oops. Buffy failed everyone! Oops. Vital lives are lost! Oops. Time travel? Uh. Oops.
1. Press For Time

Author: VaRuka (little ol' me)

Author's Note: This is a very shaky piece of fanfiction, in the since that I just started this and am going with my creative flow. I have no mapped out, story outline, notes on anything. It's kind of like a Round Robin or also known as a Tennis Fic sorta deal but with myself, though. So I'll surprise you, as I surprise me.  
Disclaimer: I like to play with these "Barbies", and these "Dream Houses" . . . they've become an awful habit. They're so goddamn addictive . . .   
Rating: R. . . ish?  
Feedback: Keeps my fingers a typing.  
Summary: Oops. The Scooby Gang is no more! Oops. Buffy failed everyone! Oops. Vital lives are lost! Oops. A locked box! Oops. Time travel? Uh. Oops. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Press For Time

  
  


This is just a great way to end every day. 

My head whips back to seize up my pursuers. I should do this everyday, it gets the heart pumping. Speeding up my pace, I zoom by closed shops, wandering natives, late nightclubs, and suspicious characters hiding in each alley. Man, where are the cops? 

I sharply curve into an alleyway. Dead end . . .damn. The pounding of my pursuers feet get more distinct. Fleeing was a bad idea. It only leads to fighting. I swivel my head around my neck, relishing in the sweet crackle and pop of my blood vessels. I thread my fingers together and pull back, grinning at the snapping sounds, just itching to wield them to pummel a being. 

"Hurry it up," I scan the swirling thundercloud filled sky. "I take it back." My grin splits even wider. "I got all the time in the world."

Getting a little impatient, I begin to bounce back and forth on the balls of my feet, ready to assault, ready to spring on the bloodthirsty scoundrels. They cannot have back what is mine, what originally was mine. Fucking thieves. Selfish, greedy, moral less, beady eyed thieves. 

They urgently turn the corner down this alley. An alley like any other alley, small and cramped, with little lighting, if any at all, and complete with smelly garbage bins. They are all equally confident. I can almost read their minds, oooh, a tiny female teenager against five big time boys; you truly already know who will end up on top. 

Yeah, but they don't know me. All they know is my appearance. And appearances as one once said, can be very, very deceiving. 

As a pack of hungry wolves they encircle me, leaving no speedy and competent escape, only a battlefield waiting to be fought upon. In a mock serious gesture I bow in respect. Already I am starting to sweat. The thunderclouds above ferociously growl, making the ground almost rumble at the intensity. I think that means start.

The shit hits the fan.

Sooner than later the reality of the situation strikes me as does a punch to my gut. In mid-fight I stumble onto the ground from the blow. All will to get up and keep kicking is leaking from my ears. The men bellow with laughter at seeing me go down without much effort on their part and without much fight on mine. 

"Spike!" The scream is urgently ripped from my throat, released to float the airwaves and hopefully land in the right ears. 

This is all a decoy.

With renewed strength uncovered from a box deep inside me, I surge back into action. I will not be beaten. And the decoy may have been efficient enough to get me away from Dawn, but there may still be time. Lightening suddenly cracks through the murky sky, hauling a roar of thunder along side it. What a beautiful night. What a night for escapades. 

The five men morph into their demonic visages. Time to go now. With a leap of might and a leap of faith, I soar upwards to distribute a well aimed kick and plow through the attacking vampires. Descending to their asses they are out of commission for just the right amount of time I need to escape. Buffy scores!

Right as I step over into the clear, a shadow blocks my exit. From a carefully hidden place I extract a well-defined stake. Mr. Pointy don't fail me now. My body is braced for the onslaught . . . but it does not come. The moonlight strikes the figure.

"Fancy meeting you here, ducks."

A smile widens my lips, as I indignantly scoff. "You're a little too late. I was about to commence my escape, threat free, and all hero-like."

"Are you quite sure?" Spike tilts his head, with a better-than-you smirk. "Cause from my view it looks like-" A vampire topples me over. Out of the corner of my eye the other four are beginning to converge, "you knocked flat on your belly, Ms. Hero." Spike snide fully finishes. 

I rapidly roll the vampire off, and with Slayer strength fling his body onto the rest of his pals. Like a bowling ball to a round of pins they collapse in a heap. It won't be long till they clamber back up and charge again. Fast as a blinking headlight I snatch up Spike's hand in my own. 

"Time's up." I drag him along at a tremendous speed. In this event we do not dally. "Level one," I glance at him with a lop-sided smile, "we semi-won." He clenches my hand in his own way of reassuring me. "Now onto level two." 

Upon reaching our New York apartment door, we stop . . . and wait. The clouds above drool droplets of rain. Another clap of thunder echoes through the land. Are we in time? Have we failed? More questions drop into my stew pot of a brain, swirling clockwise, counterclockwise, swirling, swirling, and generating a whirlwind of gooey thoughts. I tremble. Is she . . .

"Dead?" I audibly finish, not expecting Spike to catch on.

He cocks his head in my direction, examining my stance, my tremble, and softly replies. "Only way to know anything is to check."

This time he is the one dragging me along. Through the door we go and are hit with the distinct smell of blood and decay. Spike's nostrils peak, his eyes become slits, and he has vanished in a direction I do not feel like watching. I stand there observing our apartment. This is my life now. Not Sunnydale. Not anywhere, but here. And it is now all gone. Poof, bam, zoom.

All gone. All ruined.

Spike returns but minutes later. His composure is heart cracking. Tightened fists are shoved deep into his pockets, and his eyes are seeking mine. I gradual make eye contact, dreading what I will find in his watery azure depths. Silence is yanked down a time line, causing what seems like years to pass since the last spoken word.

The scent of death is pungent in the air, nearly choking me now. We never should have left. Why? Oh, fucking why? I should have stayed home with Dawnie. I didn't have to leave to retrieve back Willow's last gift to me. Of course, her gift is important, the final gift she gave before her death, but when you compare the small wooden box locked tightly to Dawn's life . . . I should have stayed home with Dawnie. Never should I have left after it, never . . . never . . .

Out of the thick silence Spike smashes his fist into the wall. The room vibrates with the magnitude of the deed. A circular hole is the result as he stumbles back. My insides shatter with that final act. Our eyes create a link. Pain mirrors pain. 

"Dead?" I dumbly ask once more, cold latching onto my bones, sucking the marrow dry.

Spike has no reply, just a pantomime of his hand to follow him. My mind screams no, but yet, my feet obey. He leads me to Dawn's room where the smell is strongest. She lies on her back in the middle of the floor, limbs strewn about in a jumble, as if they put her on display. Not a inkling of blood is to be found. Not even a splatter on the walls. 

Drained dry.

Spike's hand appears from nowhere inside of mine. The cold hisses with fear at the soothing product of the gesture, and its attachment to my bones wavers. Somehow I find myself wrapped delicately by Spike; wrapped with love, support, and a steady pulse of strength. My thumb rubs slowly on Spike's hand, my meager attempt to give him what he has just given me.

Moments later, I tear my eyes away from Dawn's limp, dead eyed body, and onto the wall. With big dripping black palpable writing is a message, another link to the continuous chain started from what feels like lifetimes ago. 

My mouth opens on its own accord, speaking in a gentle voice, as if hushing a baby: 

  
  


"She tasted like a baby deer

So sweet, so young, so full of fear

I anticipate how you both will taste

And I will take you slow, without haste

Savoring your powerful life forces

Regal souls to add to good's losses

Dying under my mistletoe

While I kiss you proper

As hello." 

  
  


And the haunting message is spoken.

Spike forcefully pulls me in his embrace. I do not oppose. It is comforting and real. He has been by my side for this short but seemingly long journey not asking for much but respect and a home-a place where he is welcome and needed. Our relationship has significantly changed for the best or worse. Boy, has it changed from the stark animosity to the smoldering love affair . . . 

Oh, boy.

Spike, Spike, Spike, what will we do? Our world has been demolished and the ruins have been left for us to wallow in. The life we have built from the older ruins of the other is nothing but ashes for us to taste our sorrow. Jeez, I sound like such a poet. 

A hollow laugh is wrenched from my throat. Spike quickly responds, not being able to bear it, by quieting me with a kiss. A kiss that packs emotions now overflowing from his unnatural body down into the caverns of my own. Spike, Spike, Spike, can we now leave Sunnydale and Los Angeles and New York behind us? Discard them permanently together in the proverbial dust?   
Oh, look at me, thinking to Spike like he could hear me . . .

. . . I have really left sanity, about to drown in the deep end. My grip on Spike becomes firmer. A shaky kiss is pressed hard onto my neck. 

"Don't," I croak out between a sob and a plea, "let me drown." 

He draws back to look me square in the eyes. "Why would I ever let that happen?" A flicker of his charming smirk leeches onto his lips. I calmly sniffle, ending my little episode. "I love you, Buffy." He just does not know how much those words mean to me, how much they affect every fiber of my being. "And my love has kept me by your side this far. I know I won't desert you, not now, not ever."

My mouth snaps open with relief to tentatively whisper, "I love you, too. You have been this rock. This bleached rock with a sun allergy that has never moved and is forever stuck on Buffy's landscape."

After that is said my mind attempts to re-balance its sanity from tipping to insanity, and mainly is becoming flooded down to the last square inch of room with uninhibited grief. 

Somberly, I retrace my steps back into the main room, Spike promptly shadowing my movements. I can't look at Dawn's empty body any longer without purging my stomach of its contents. She signifies death in the molested form. They didn't just kill her; they drained the body of every liquid known to the human anatomy as they did to . . .

. . . Willow . . . Giles . . . Xander . . . Angel . . . Cordelia . . . and maybe to whomever is left . . .

They want us all good as dead. We can run, goes the old saying, but we can't hide.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Author's Note: Yes I am making my life a living hell. I have Ash Can Reform, an original short story called Ample Flow, another original called Circular Eventuality and now . . .*sighs* I have Now Hero Anon to finish. *shakily laughs* So updates on Ash Can Reform may be postponed for a tiny bit as I strive to finish and add to other things.

I know, I know, I know, I suck. 


	2. Melting Ice

Melting Ice

"Just yesterday, Dawn was complaining about schoolwork, but never asking for help with her homework." I speak aloud my memory.

Spike gulps down a sob. "Yeah, the Nibblet 'ad a knack for being way too proud for 'er knickers." He slides up behind me, encasing his strong arms around my frame, resting his fatigued head that knows far too much for its own good along my shoulder. "Just like you."

"Should we return to what's left of the others? If they are any left? Regroup?" I distantly inquire, mind doing little angry flip-flops from one scenario to the next.

He overtly hesitates in answering. "Wha'ever we do, it should not be associated with giving up." He indomitably states, using the tone that suggests that he was saying it for his own state of mind.

"Don't lose it on me, Spike. If you do, I'll be tumbling right beside you."

He glumly chuckles. "Now aren't those the words I never thought I'd 'ear from you, love."

"I may be strong, but even the Great Wall of China has to crumble sometime." I tiredly enlighten, big droplets of tears ominous to cascade.

"Slayer, Buffy, hush baby, hush." Spike shakily whispers, moisture trickling from his eyes onto my shoulder.

I will not cry. I will not cry. 

Fuck! 

After all I have sincerely done for this world, the Powers That Be cannot just help me this one time! Lend a hand you damn maniacs! How can you sit back in your glow-y seats of power and watch this monstrosity of my life play out!? I'm your Warrior of Light that has shone for years longer than you had expected, and this is what I get in return!? 

Why aren't you helping? 

My eyes pivot around the room, soaking in every feature for this may as well be the last time I will be here. It's common knowledge to never be where your enemy knows. My age-old mantra ricochets in my head, attempting to build up what has broken since entering this building tonight. Be strong, Buffy. Be strong, Buffy. Be strong, Buffy . . .

Everything has been in a play of tug-o-war, and I think the game is over. I am the one sitting in the foul mud as the victors dance and bask in their ability to best me so. Every special person in my life is either standing with me now, in hiding, or dead. I should be the one rotting in a grave, not here, now, living and breathing.

"Spike, we left the past miles behind us, but it has legs, and anything with legs, will not sit still." I randomly ground out with a sigh attached at the end.

"I take it you mean we shouldn't run anymore? You know wha' bloody well happened the last time we gave that a go." He all too practically declares, nuzzling my shoulder to relinquish some of the sting that came with his words.

Panicking I bow my head, releasing sardonic laughter. "I don't know what I mean anymore. I'm talking in riddles for fuck's sake!" I ruthlessly shrug off his sentimental hold, spinning to face him, waving my arms frantically in the air. "I sound like Drusilla as a blonde!"

Spike thumps his hand against his face, a sign of quick thinking, quick appraisal, and quick reconfiguration. I know him all to well . . . And with a deadly slowness, swipes it down half in disappointment and the other half to clean away his tear trails. "Get over this, this stage you've plopped yourself in, put it behind you, flush it down, soddin' stake it, pet."

"Get over this? How can you stand there and say that after all we've witnessed together?! How, how dare you!"

Spike growls portentously. "To make it quite clear, Buffy, it's 'cause of what we've witnessed that I can say it." In all his fury his ethereal beauty magnifies tenfold, chalk white flesh dominant against antagonistic black clothing, insolent pulsing azure eyes loving and relaying . . . "Bloody hell woman, everyone we've ever given two shits about in a percentage is 100% dead, dying, or us!" Hands grip my shoulders in a bone-grinding grasp. "So we 'ave to get over it." 

A lethal tranquility accompanies my words. "But what about Anya and Tara? They could still be alive and well." I awkwardly backtrack. "Not well, cause of their spouses deaths and all," I fumble a tad with my arms unable to articulate it for a second, "but at least alive. I made my decision. We regroup. Safety in numbers." 

"Did you 'ear what I just bleedin' took my time to rant? They're all dead. We moved the farthest, they didn't. You 'ave to understand how a predator works. We wear you down with the running exercise, watch as you break apart in a hasty last resort, let the hope that it's over breach your mind, and pounce the closest to farthest, one by one. By then you're numbers 'ave dwindled, you're fucking worn-out, and scarcely clutching on by a silver thread." 

I stare dead on, flailing around in his astounding and logical knowledge, but then again, he was . . . correction, is a predator, a legitimate bloodthirsty vampire. Since the first night of running it has been forgotten, only the occasional walking in on him drinking blood from a warm mug sparks the fact back to life. Such a strong, intelligent, and resourceful predator by his deviant blood and mentality who's mine to command. 

He concludes his speech. "Efficient, chaotic, and most of all an unexplainably smashing time, baby."

"We regroup." I resolutely repeat.

"Sweets." Spike's attitude dims and is replaced by the one of a dissembled man that has had to many things stolen from him, had many things to live for and now is only down to one. His hands retract their clutch on me, descending listlessly to his sides. "We get over it, remember them always, and save our skinny bums. Do you want to wade in the past and drown your woeful being, or swim out, pull its plug and watch the cocky bastard swirl down the drain?"

I blatantly gawk, nibbling thoughtfully on my bottom lip, eyes tearing once more, and the heady smell of Dawn's death still pestering my nose. He strummed a chord in me with his metaphorical reason. "I . . . I just want everything the way it used be . . .

"I want to be back in Sunnydale worrying about mundane things; bills, dishes, cleaning demon goop from my latest jeans, the once a year apocalypse hazards, stupid familiar things." I dryly giggle, tears shedding from my eyes by the mere thought of these statements. Spike's smug trademark grin peaks from behind his anguished facade. "Yeah, I said it, I rather be back on the Hellmouth, fulfilling all my pestering Slayer duties, fighting some new big baddy bent of the end of the world as we know it . . . and stuff, than failing those I love time after time, living as they are dead, and all I can do is run from my inevitable death in fashionably cute but pain inflicting heeled boots." A moment beats, Spike coos me back into his arms. Meekly, I sniffle. "Can't we poof them all back, kill this baddy bent on our destruction and finish the day by Ben & Jerry-ing it?" 

"In your imagination, ducks, in your imagination." He delicately pets my hair, seeming lost now, all words and sentences leeched up and away. 

"If you're so right," His leather coat muffles my soft and beseeching words, "then everyone is dead, we're the only two remaining of them all, they're going to be coming after us next, what do we do?"

A whistling sigh blows from his lips. "I only know what my blood tells me." He allows it to hang . . .

"What does it tell you?"

Spike counts them off. "Get smashed. Commit violence. Drink blood. Shag Buffy. Repeat cycle not necessarily in that order." 

I wallop him on the back, a grateful smile my other reaction for his diffusion of the situation. "Other than that, sweetie."

"It says beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"Cut the crap."

He arches his scarred eyebrow. "Well beauty is . . ." He resentfully huffs. "But onto the bloody serious and significant bullocks." I lay my head back onto his chest, the peace of his halted heart rocking me to a light sleep. "It boldly says to love and protect this little golden parcel that is you, while occasionally keeping myself from the end of a pointy something or other." 

One-step in dream world and one-step in reality I wistfully murmur, settling more into Spike's chest. "So we have no plan but to live on?"

"In your case you live, in mine I am already dead, not six-feet-under as proper, but dead nonetheless."

My arms bound themselves around his waist. "You're the most alive being I know. Listen to yourself babble about being dead. Do the dead have girlfriends? A life? A home?"

"Aw shucks Slayer, you're making me blush."

Another wallop on the back. "Shut up, Spike. Learn to take truths in all their wordy forms."

He pulls back to scrutinize me with a skeptical expression. "That isn't some blarney you're weaving for grateful minds like me?"

"Blarney?" I cynically question. "I don't even know what that means, so how can I be-"


	3. An Effect for a Cause

Author's Note: I've had this chapter done right when I finished the second one, just never posted this one. *shrugs* Well, here it is now. Now don't hold you're breath for chapter four . . . I only have the beginning and a little of the middle of that done. Review as always. I feel that this was bad writing on my part. But I do not know any other way to write it. Tell me what you think.

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An Effect for a Cause

  
  


Spike fondly elevates a finger to my lips. Stunned, I slink into silence. "My Slayer." He proudly coos, his everything the abyss for my own to get sucked in. 

I need this. I need this familiarity. The blinding beams of his love pouring forth from his eyes, always like two lighthouse lights seeking only me, the compress of our bodies as they curve and mold for each other . . . and the desire.

Jupiter sized desire.

This time when our lips lock it is waterfalls clashing, manifesting vicious turbulence, a mimic of the rampant thunderstorm outside. 

Need. 

We have had many things precious seized right from under us. 

Need. 

In this clawing embrace we have come to wholly acknowledge none of those things will be returned neat and new right back under us. 

Need. We need them still. 

There are little voids spotting our insides where those things used to fill. Now we have to work twice as hard to fill their voids, to find them inside of each other, even if for a half moment. I am using him. He is using me. We only reach solace in this embrace, in the consummation of our love, for currently we are alone, alone, alone.

Him and me.

Me and him.

We chaotically break apart to divest each other of our coats and shirts, and then mend together for another scorching kiss. His hands find their way to my hair, stripping the clip, permitting it to cascade in waves. Next those nimble fingers unsnap my bra to reveal myself to his enthusiastic gaze. 

Down my neck his cool mouth pursues. Hastily, his hands find another article of clothing to discard from me . . . my pants. And then with sudden rage my skimpy underwear. I roughly lift my bare leg to coil around his welcoming waist, sending spastic electric jolts as our pelvis grind to our own special music. A rumbling growl, so like the growl of the thunder slithers past his lips and into my ear.

Without any warning he jerks my body all the way on him, inclining my other leg to join its twin around his waist. My thighs begin sliding his jeans down after my fingers anxiously undid all the fastens-Spike has gone commando, no surprise there . Harsh breathing is in surround sound. My mouth is everywhere from his neck, face, to his lips as he staggers us over to the couch. 

His foot negligently crushes something in my removed coat. The noise is hushed by Spike's resolute roar of anticipation. And then a wave of red swathes my vision, the fiery red like Willow's hair. A force so concentrated it rocks my body, heightening my senses, tweaking my brain, and snaring me and Spike in an unseen hand. 

We descend onto the couch in what seems as slow motion. 

Our emotions convert into luminous palpable colors, weaving through, around and in us. A sharp gasp as Spike brims me over is expelled as a oceanic blue to join the brilliant colors floating all around. Ever memory ever created starts flashing through our brains in vivid detail, that it is almost like viewing a play in the front seats. 

With each dreamy touch and cutting thrust we are linking, helping to knit a tighter cage of durable silk over us, a self-made cage of transportation. My soul rubs his in a languid massage of building power, allowing me to be him, as he is me. Our eyes are wide and glowing at a pulsating rate as our climaxes progress to a crescendo.

"Spike . . .?" My mouth forms the word in absolute comical slowness, causing it to echo as if originating from a far away void.

Instead of vocally replying with a most logical, "Buffy . . .?", he transmits the most unabashed expression of concentrated lust through my eyes to burrow deep down to my exploding core. 

The odd occurrences grow as the beans in the Jack in the Beanstalk fairytale but not with height or width. It grows in power and speed. Once floating tranquilly around us, now thickening and zooming in us. Spike feels it to for his jaw clenches as these streams of colors representing so many things of ourselves charge our bodies past our natural capacity for power and beyond.

Internal pain and internal pleasure combine as Spike delivers his last abnormally slow thrust. My nails in what seems like a century reach his back and inflict a trail of welts by passionate impulse. My mouth is a perfect O. His grip is desperate, scared. The colors blind us. A high jolt surges from him to me; breaking loose the tsunami waves of ecstasy.

Light.

Silence.

Fog.

Roars.

Our screams.


End file.
